Google Inc. fired a software engineer for snooping on its users' private information, the Internet search giant confirmed Wednesday. The 27-year-old employee, David Barksdale, allegedly accessed information about four teenagers he met through a Seattle technology group, according to gossip website Gawker, which reported the incident Tuesday. Barksdale, a self-described hacker whose job was to maintain and troubleshoot Google sites, had access to users' personal accounts and information, Gawker reported.

You've probably heard it a thousand times: There's no free lunch. But sometimes it helps to get a little reminder. And so we turn our attention to e-mails making the rounds from something called BestShoppingRewards. The company has a variety of come-ons, all basically structured the same. The e-mail I'm looking at says, "Vote for your favorite item at McDonald's and get a FREE $50 McDonald's Gift Card!" When I visited the BestShoppingRewards website the other day, the pitch was for a "FREE $500 Visa Gift Card!"

In what could be the first televised political attack to center on Facebook and online privacy, California attorney general candidate Kamala Harris is accusing Chris Kelly, one of her opponents in the race for the Democratic nomination, of "designing the Facebook privacy policy condemned across the country." "Chris Kelly released your private information," the ad's voice-over says, with solemn music in the background. The ad debuted in the Los Angeles television market Thursday.

Hooray, Facebook saved the Internet! OK, so maybe that's making too much of the privacy controls that Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Wednesday. But if the company hadn't addressed the uproar over its ever-changing privacy policy, there was a real possibility that Washington would have stepped in with new rules that would have applied to all social network operators, or even all websites. And we'd like to keep the nanny state away from the Net as long as possible. That's not to defend what Facebook has been doing.

The Los Angeles Police Commission violated its own strict privacy policy -- and perhaps state law -- on Friday, releasing a confidential report on the Internet that contained the names of hundreds of officers accused of racial profiling and other misconduct.

Google Inc. has made peace with privacy advocates over one of its policies, and it did so without cluttering up its famously sparse home page. The Web search giant had drawn criticism for its refusal to include a link to its privacy policy on Google.com. Some groups called that a violation of state law. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company responded that it didn't think the link was necessary because its privacy policy was "readily accessible" to those looking for it. It can be found, among other places, on its About page, which is linked to Google.

Google Inc. and privacy advocates are in a fight over valuable real estate: google.com. Several top consumer groups wrote an open letter to the Web search leader Tuesday, accusing it of violating a California law by failing to link to its privacy policy from google.com. Google's response: "We share the view that privacy information should be easy to find, and we believe our privacy policy is readily accessible to our users."

The all-you-can-eat packages of voice, video and Internet services offered by phone and cable companies may be convenient, but they represent a potentially significant threat to people's privacy. Take, for example, Time Warner Cable, which has about 2 million customers in Southern California. The company offers a voice-video-Net package called "All the Best" for $89.85 for the first 12 months.

Bank of America Corp. agreed to pay $14 million to resolve claims that it improperly disclosed customer information to marketers and third parties without permission. The bank will pay $10.75 million to 35 million checking and savings customers nationwide and to credit card customers in California and $3.25 million to finance privacy projects, said Shirley Norton, a spokeswoman for the bank. BofA did not admit wrongdoing in the accord.

AT&T HAS NEVER COMMENTED PUBLICLY about a lawsuit filed in January accusing it of funneling data to the National Security Agency about its customers' Internet habits. It has, however, issued a new privacy policy to customers of its Internet services. Effective Friday, the company claims broader rights to collect and disclose information about users, not just to the government but to other third parties.